


Missed

by Elvarya85



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bruce isn't really absent, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint and Coulson have been married for like five years, Fluff, IMMA SING THE DOOM SONG! DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM..., Just not really mentioned at all, M/M, SHIELD Husbands, and some angst, doombots show up too, kind of an equal mix of both, phlint - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvarya85/pseuds/Elvarya85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint prided himself on his perfect record. It meant he was worth something, it meant he belonged up there with the Avengers.</p>
<p>Clint hasn't missed a shot in the fifteen years he's been a member of SHIELD.</p>
<p>Until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed

**Author's Note:**

> Idk where this prompt came from but I hate myself for it. And then I was encouraged by Kuro, my RP buddy. I blame her.
> 
> Anyway, a lot of Clint's reaction is based on that one quote from him, "But I wanted to play with the big boys. And if I miss, it means I'm just another dude with a bow. It means I've been fooling myself this whole time. And that's why I never miss."
> 
> And so I decided to add shieldhusbands into the mix and came up with this! I also took a few other liberties and added in some ridiculousness, but hey, can you blame me? Either way, I hope you like it!
> 
> Note: Unbeta-ed because I write these things and want to get them out too quickly and I'm impatient, so any and all mistakes are entirely mine.

It was a pretty simple mission, as far as it went. There were a couple rogue Doombots flying around, scaring the civvies. Naturally the Avengers were called in the dispatch them.

Clint was pissed about it, though. Phil had the night off, and they were gonna spend a nice, quiet night together. Maybe watch a movie or something. And Phil was making dinner! They’d been right in the middle of baking the potatoes when the call came in.

“All I’m saying is, couldn’t Doom have given us the night off or something?” Clint griped over the coms, squinting as the sun descended over the horizon, right in his eyes. 

“Barton, just because you’d rather stay at home and screw your husband doesn’t mean all the threats go away,” Tony reminded him.

Steve cut in there. “You think we can keep the coms clear?”

Tony chuckled. “Why, Captain, are we making you blush?”

“Cut it, Stark,” Natasha said, backing him up.

“Hawkeye, heads up, you’ve got a bot coming up on your nine,” Stark told him, ignoring Natasha.

Clint turned to see the thing coming towards him and grinned. First shot of the night, and this looked to be an easy one. The bot was flying right at him, not even zigzagging. As easy a shot as he could be given. He reached back for an arrow, loaded with an explosive head, and drew it back. The string felt strange as he pulled back, but he put it out of his mind, rolled his shoulders, waited until the bot was in the perfect spot, then released and-

Missed.

Clint’s eyes widened as he took in what had just happened. The arrow sailed right by, a foot above the bot, following a smooth, easy arc, and exploded below it.

He didn’t know how it had happened. His mind was racing. He’d...he’d missed a shot. He hadn’t missed a shot since he was back in the circus. He was Hawkeye, he was one of the Avengers! _He didn’t miss shots._

He quickly reached for another arrow and drew back, fired-

And missed again.

Clint was panicking now. What had happened? How the hell had he missed? _Twice?!_

He took a deep breath and drew another arrow, and tried to adjust, loosing the arrow which, luckily, hit its mark this time, embedding itself in the neck of the Doombot and exploding in perfect time. He felt the heat and fire singe the hair on his arms, it was that close, but he wasn’t injured.

He took a shaky breath, then said, “This is Hawkeye. I’m out of commission.”

“What?!” It was Steve. “Hawkeye, report! Are you injured?”

“I’m not hurt. I can’t make the shots, though. My aim is off.”

“Then adjust!” Cap insisted.

“If you want me firing off exploding arrows and risking them hitting you, then I’ll stay. But if you value that pretty little head of yours, I’m going back to HQ.”

He pulled the com out of his ear and threw it to the side without waiting for an answer, then started making his way back to HQ. 

He could feel it settling into him, deep in his bones.

He was done for.

* * *

Phil was told as soon as Clint got back to HQ that something had gone wrong. None of the other Avengers had come back with him, they were all still in the field, but he was back. Apparently Hill had approached him as soon as he’d entered the building, but he’d just yelled for her to stay away.

So, of course, they’d called in Coulson.

“He’s in the shooting range,” she told him when he got there. “It’s not pretty.”

He sighed and made his way to the range. Clint didn’t look up when he entered, though Phil was certain he knew he was there. He was muttering to himself, though Phil couldn’t make out any of the words, and he was loosing arrow after arrow at a breakneck pace. There were two piles of arrows beside him, one a pile of new arrows that wouldn’t fit in his quiver, ready to be loaded when he needed them, the other a pile of arrows that were cracked from the back end. Like he’d hit the first arrow with a second. Repeatedly.

Damn.

“Clint?” he finally said, taking a few steps forward and trying not to startle him. He was pretty sure Clint knew he was there, though he could never quite tell with the archer. He’d sometimes get so focused on shooting that he wouldn’t notice anything or anyone around him. 

Clint looked over him, taking in the fact that he was there, then glared back at the target and loosed another three arrows in rapid fire. They landed in a perfect line on the target, one at the top, one at the bottom, and one at the bullseye. 

“Clint, what happened?” Coulson asked, coming up to stand beside him and lean on the partition wall that separated his lane from the next.

“I missed,” Clint said through clenched teeth. The next arrow hit the top arrow straight on, splintering it.

Coulson’s jaw dropped. “What do you mean, you missed?” Clint never missed. Clint hadn’t missed, as far as Phil knew, since the day he’d joined SHIELD. He’d asked him about it once, and Clint had told him something about how he had to make every shot, or it meant he wasn’t good enough. Like Clint equated his perfect record to his worth as an agent.

The man slammed the bow down, though he was obviously careful not to cause any actual damage. “I mean that a Doombot was flying towards me. And I took three fucking shots to take the thing out.”

“Why?” Clint didn’t just start missing shots. There had to be something else going on.

Clint picked up the other bow from the table there and held it out to Coulson. “This is my bow. And it’s fucking broken.”

Phil took the thing and drew the string back, immediately noticing how off-balance the thing was. “It’s out of alignment,” he noted.

“Yeah, Phil, it’s fucking out of alignment!” He picked up the other bow and loosed through more arrows out of anger, each hitting the bullseye of another target down the line. “You aren’t even an archer and you knew that! And that’s _my_ bow. _My_ eqipment, and I didn’t know it was fucking _broken_ before I took it into the field and tried to _use_ it!”

“Clint-”

“Don’t ‘Clint’ me!” he exclaimed. “You can’t make this better, Phil! Nothing can make this better!”

“Clint, you made a mistake!” Phil said, tone a bit harsher than he’d meant it to be, but whatever, he was pretty sure Clint needed harsh right about then.

“Yeah, I did,” he agreed. “And it was a rookie mistake! No, it’s a _stupid_ , not-gonna-make-it-to-the-second- _mission_ rookie mistake! How long have I been working for SHIELD? Fifteen years? And yet I took broken equipment into the field. I should know better!”

“It’s not your fault your equipment malfunctioned! That’s our fault, we gave you the bow.” Phil was wondering how long this was going to go on - probably a while. There were few things more important to Clint than his perfect record, and if that was in shambles, he felt like he had nothing else. Which wasn’t true at all, but his husband did love to be over-dramatic. 

It could be difficult for Phil to get things like that out of Clint. He wasn’t quick to share, even though they’d been married for five years. Clint just wasn’t good at sharing, wasn’t good at broaching the subject. Usually, Phil had to figure out that Clint wanted to tell him something, and persuade him to voice what he had to say. 

“I should have checked the bow,” he insisted. “You gave me the bow, but I have my own, I have others. I chose to take that into the field. I should have checked it, that was my responsibility. And even if you guys will take the blame for this, it doesn’t change the fact that I _know_ it’s my fault.”

Phil let out a sigh, wondering when and how he should stop him. He’d actually tried to stop him by kissing him before, but he’d discovered that it only stopped him as long as Clint’s mouth was occupied, and then he was right back to ranting and raving.

And now, Clint had moved to questioning his place on the team. “Why should I even be an Avenger, Phil? If I can’t even guarantee that I can hit my marks, why should I be out there? Hell, I should just pull on some green tights and prance on down to Disneyland for all the good I can do.”

Clint had heard enough at that point and he made a decision. He ducked down and picked Clint up, throwing him over his shoulder. Phil looked small, but he was actually a lot stronger than he looked, and Clint was a lot lighter than he looked (he wasn’t all that tall, after all).

“Phil, what-” Clint began, caught off guard. “What are you doing? C’mon, Phil, put me down!” He wasn’t really fighting it, though, he was just hanging there over Phil’s shoulder, crossing his arms and pouting.

“Nope, I’m taking you home. Staying here won’t do anything but waste all of the arrows in the joint.”

“I need to train!” Clint insisted as Phil carried him out the door and into the hallway. All eyes in the hallway automatically turned to them, but they ignored them.

“You’ve trained enough, Clint. I’m not putting you down until we’ve gotten out to the car.”

“Phiiiiiiiil!” Clint tried to twist out of his grasp, but Phil’s hold was steadfast. “Babe, please let me go.”

“Okay, fine,” Phil said.

“Really?”

“Sure!” he nodded. “Once we’re out at the car.”

They were in the elevator now. “Director Fury,” Coulson nodded to the man already in the elevator. 

Clint twisted to look. “Oh, hey, Fury,” he said, flushing deep red.

Fury just stared at them. “Coulson, is there a reason Agent Barton is thrown over your shoulder?”

“There was an equipment malfunction earlier,” he said, as if it explained anything. “It resulted in a bit of extreme pouting.”

“I wasn’t pouting!” Clint exclaimed. “I was training!”

“Shush, I told you you’ve trained enough,” Phil said, as the door opened on the main floor. “Director,” Phil said with another nod, by way of goodbye, then he stepped off the elevator. Clint just groaned as he was carried through the busiest area of SHIELD HQ, tossed over Phil’s shoulder, and not saying anything and trying to pretend like this wasn’t happening. The Avengers were just getting back soon, and from the look on Tony’s face, he was never gonna let this go. Ever.

He just glared at everyone and everything in general and allowed himself to be carried off into the parking garage, where Phil somehow maneuvered him into the seat and buckled him in with a swift motion that Clint hadn’t exactly been able to follow. Then Phil moved around to the driver’s seat and grinned at him.

“You’re an asshole,” Clint assured him.

“You married me, you knew this already.”

Clint just rolled his eyes, refusing to say anything on the drive home. He wasn’t even upset with Phil, because he was just taking care of him, as usual. No, he was pissed at himself. He should have checked the bow, should have felt it when he drew back, should have compensated. What if he’d hit Nat, or Steve, or-

“Stop that,” Phil said.

They were sitting at a red light, about two minutes away from the tower. Clint turned to him with an eyebrow raised. “Stop what?”

“You’re thinking about it and blaming yourself. Stop that.”

“Are you sure you aren’t telepathic or something?” Clint asked. Because Phil always had this uncanny ability to know what he was thinking, and he was definitely starting to suspect...

“I just know you, Clint. It wasn’t your fault. If anything, it’s mine. So stop blaming yourself and just check the equipment next time.”

Clint grumbled in reply, but he didn’t have a chance to fully reply, because they’d pulled up outside the tower. Tony had put Jarvis in their car, so as soon as they pulled up at front, Phil was unbuckling his seatbelt and saying, “Jarvis, park the car, please.”

_“Yes, sir.”_

Phil turned to Clint. “Do I need to carry you out of the car, too?”

Clint sighed. “No, I can do it.” He unbuckled his own seatbelt and walked around the car to walk alongside Phil, hands in his pockets. 

Phil stared at him for a moment before rolling his eyes and placing his hand at the small of his back to guide him along. “We’ll go upstairs, I’ll make you some hot chocolate.” Clint loved hot chocolate, it was Phil’s go-to response for comforting him.

Clint laughed, though it was half-hearted. “You know me so well...”

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” 

Clint smiled as they got into the elevator and headed up to their floor. They were near the top, but the elevator was pretty damned fast, so they arrived there soon. _“Welcome back, Mr. and Mr. Coulson,”_ Jarvis said as they entered. Clint grinned when he heard that. At SHIELD, he still went by Barton (more for simplicity than anything. It got a bit confusing when they were on an op and people were trying to talk to him or Phil and they had to remind themselves not to say ‘Coulson’ because they were _both Coulson now_.) but legally, his name was Clint Coulson, and he went by that when he wasn’t at work. _“There are currently no messages waiting on the phone, and there is nothing else to report.”_

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Clint said automatically. He turned to Phil, wondering what he had in mind, as he’d insisted they come home.

“Bedroom,” he said, pointing down the hall. Clint raised an eyebrow suggestively. “Don’t look at me like that! I’m going to make that hot chocolate for you, and then we’re going to talk about this.”

Clint rolled his eyes, but he headed down the hall to their bedroom, plopping down on his back and covering his face with his arms. He kept replaying the incident in his head. The first shot, the _second_. God, he hadn’t missed one shot, he’d missed _two_. That made it so much worse. One missed shot with a messed up bow was excusable, but two missed shots... The fact that he hadn’t identified and adjusted for the problem... He was mortified, embarrassed. 

Phil came in about five minutes later, setting the hot chocolate on the nightstand, pulling off his shoes and jacket, and curling up against Clint. The man kept his arms over his face and just groaned.

“Clint, come on,” Phil begged. “It’s not your fault, it doesn’t mess with your damn record.”

“Yeah it does, Phil.”

He sighed. “Okay, so you don’t have a perfect record anymore. So what?”

“So what?” Clint pulled his arms away from his face to look at Phil like he was crazy. “Babe, it means everything. Without that record, I’m just a guy with a bow trying to be Robin Hood.” His arms covered his face again.

“Clint,” Phil said, tugged on one of the arms over his face, but it wouldn’t come off. “Cliiiint,” he tugged harder on the arm. “Come on, babe, just look at me.” He tugged again, and Clint just rolled over onto his face and mumbled something into the comforter. “I can’t hear you.”

He turned his face so that he could speak without the blanket muffling him. “I said, I don’t even deserve to be an Avenger anymore.”

Phil’s nostrils flared. “No, fuck that.” Clint looked up in surprise, knowing that his husband rarely cursed like that. “Clint, who decides who’s on the team? Because it’s not Fury. I’m your handler, I decide who goes out in the field. And you know that I wouldn’t send you out there if I didn’t believe 100% that you could do your job, and do it right. This is a fluke, one bad day in fifteen years of good ones.”

He shook his head. “You’re my husband. You have to say that.”

Phil shook his head right back. “No, I don’t have to say this. I care about your safety more than I care about your feelings, Clint. You’re on the team, and you’ll be in the field tomorrow, or next time Loki decides to invade, or Doom makes a nuisance of himself, or _whatever_. You’re an Avenger, Clint, and two missed shots don’t take back years of perfect ones, and they don’t take you off the team. You got that?”

He was quiet, and he finally let out a sigh, and nodded, rolling over and sitting up to kiss his husband sleepily. Clint was always tired after ops, and the clock on the nightstand told him that it was nearing midnight. He might not show it while he was at HQ, but as soon as they got back to the tower, he was always dead on his feet. Phil had actually found him sleeping standing up before, but Clint steadfastly denied that. “Thanks, Phil.”

“Anytime, Clint.” He smiled at him. “Now drink your hot chocolate, take a nap. You might have had the rest of the day off, but I still have paperwork to do. I’ll debrief you tomorrow.” He kissed Clint’s forehead and moved to pull away, but Clint’s arms around his waist wouldn’t release him. “You gonna let me go?”

“Mmm, no,” Clint grinned, burying his face in Phil’s side. “Work can wait for tomorrow.”

Phil considered for a moment, then nodded. Work could wait for tomorrow.

He settled down next to Clint, pulling the blankets over them while Clint curled around him, already snuffling lightly in that way that let Phil know he was asleep.

He pressed his lips again to Clint’s forehead and closed his own eyes, falling asleep soon after in the arms of his one and only.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated, here or on tumblr!
> 
> http://frostirons.tumblr.com/ask


End file.
